The mascletá is held in Valencia's largest plaza. It starts at 2 PM every day during Las Fallas. People started gathering at about 1 PM. By 1:30, people were packed in so tight you could barely move.

A huge falla with a musical theme sits aside the central plaza.

The queen of the Las Fallas celebration gets to witness the mascletá from a balcony, up above the rest of the crowd.

EMT's were on the ready in case of an accident or health emergency.

Another view of the huge falla aside the large plaza.

Anyone lucky to have a home or office on the plaza gets to watch from their balconies. By the time the mascletá statred, the balconies on this beautiful old building were jam-packed.

Chris and our friend Jim.

This picture should give you a pretty good idea of the crowd. I would guess there were at least 100,000 people packed into the area where the mascletá took place.

A little girl whose family was next to us in the crowd.

The girl lucked out and got a good view!

Jim, enjoying himself.

Another shot of our friend.

Me and Chris having a fun day.

Our Spanish friends had a great day, too!

The festivities about to begin...

Boom! Boom! One of the loudest noises I've ever heard ensued. Not very good for photographing, but a great time.